The Great Wall of China at Badaling, 80 km from Beijing: The pollution hangs heavy. Photo credit: Robysan at the German language Wikipedia via Wikimedia Commons

Analysts say this is the first time Beijing has put a ban on the opening of new mines: the move has been prompted both by falling demand for coal as a result of a slowing economy and by increasing public concern about hazardous levels of pollution, which have blanketed many cities across the country over recent months.

Beijing, a city of nearly 20 million, issued two red smog alerts—the most serious air pollution warning—in December, causing schools to close and prompting a warning to residents to stay indoors.

A 2015 study estimated that air pollution—much of it from the widespread burning of coal—contributed to up to 1.6 million deaths each year in China.

The country is by far the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal, the mostpolluting fossil fuel. Emissions from coal-fired power plants and other industrial concerns in China have made it the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, putting more climate-changing gases into the atmosphere each year than the U.S. and the European Union combined.

In 2010, coal generated about 70 percent of China’s total energy: last year that figure dropped to 64 percent as more large-scale investments in renewable energy sources came on stream.

Whether or not that decline in coal use will be speedy or ambitious enough to head off serious national and international climate change is not clear.

There are also questions about whether the coal-mining regions of China—predominantly in the north of the country—will ever recover from theenvironmental devastation inflicted on them.

Uranium Risk

Vast swathes of land in Shanxi province, once the main coal production area, have been destroyed by mining: air and water pollution has caused a health crisis in many regions.

The province of Inner Mongolia—bigger than France and Spain combined—is now the main area for coal, accounting for about 25 percent of China’s total production, most of it through open-cast mining. Copper, lead and uranium are also mined in the province.

Concerns have also been raised about vast uranium deposits found near coal-mining areas. China’s fast-growing nuclear industry has complained that vital uranium deposits might be contaminated by coal mining: others fear that uranium-contaminated coal could be being burned in power stations, showering radioactive dust on the surrounding countryside and its inhabitants.